Tag: values

Build an Organization Good Enough to Attract and Retain the Best People

Are you having attraction and retention problems? Do you constantly struggle to hire and keep the right people? Are there always unfilled job openings in your company. Does your door feel like a turnstile at times. If you can’t find enough good people, then maybe you haven’t built a company good enough to attract those people. And it’s only going to get worse. Recently, consulting firm Randstad conducted the Workmonitor global study. The study revealed

April 14, 2022

Gratitude and the Accountable Leader

What does gratitude have to do with accountability? Everything! Gratitude is one of the three accountable mindsets. Without gratitude accountability would not exist. Accountability is keeping your commitments to people. We tend to think of tactical commitments like getting a project done, showing up at a certain time, or turning in a report as being accountable. Those are responsibilities. It is the relational commitments that build accountability. Examples of relational commitments are: A commitment to

November 23, 2021

A Leadership Accountability Check at Amazon

Amazon is in the news again, and not for a good reason. A recent report from Reuters says a trove of documents examined by reporters confirms the on-line retail giant “stoked sales of Amazon private-brand offerings by rigging Amazon’s search results so that the company’s products would appear…‘in the first 2 or three search results’“ for customers on Amazon.in, its Indian e-commerce site. This despite sworn testimony before the US Congress from senior Amazon executives,

October 21, 2021

Your Source of Excellence

Usually, when we run into a challenge, we focus most of our effort on changing what we do…and we make little or no effort to change the way we think. Yet the power of thinking far outstrips the effects of doing. It is only when we change the way we think that we change what we do in a sustainable way. This is a key principle of accountable leadership: Action always follows belief. If you

August 3, 2021

Who You Are Is the Action You Take in Support of Your Purpose

Accountable leaders never tire of asking themselves a tough question: Who am I, really? They know the answer to that question is always going to be rooted, not in what they say about themselves, but in the actions that they choose to take. These leaders know their actions do one of two things: they either demonstrate full commitment to their chosen purpose in life … or they demonstrate commitment to something else. Recently, I was

July 27, 2021

Building an Accountable Workplace Culture

One of the most common questions I hear from leaders is: How do we build an accountable workplace culture? The answer is simple… but it is not easy. In fact, the answer to this question gives us a textbook example of why simple principles often take immense amounts of time, energy, and effort to implement. The simple answer is as follows. To build an accountable workplace culture, you first design it. How do you design

June 1, 2021

The Attack on the Capitol: A Question of Character and Accountability

Here are some thoughts on accountability inspired by the attack on the Capitol yesterday. Accountable leaders in any field of endeavor, including politics, inevitably face questions of character. Our character is demonstrated by our decisions and our deeds over the long term, not by the words we throw out in the heat of the moment so we can look good when the cameras are rolling. Character, in other words, is a long-term play, it is

January 7, 2021

Living the Values: The Key to Accountability in Trying Times

Accountable leaders know that the values of the organization must always connect to the actions and decisions of each and every team member. They also know that Respect has to be one of those values. If team members are not willing to treat each other with respect — whether that is over a political disagreement, a disagreement about how to redecorate the breakroom, or anything in between — then the accountable leader has to call time-out and make sure the value of Respect is restored.

November 27, 2020

Collin Martin: A Study in Personal and Team Accountability

You may only dimly recall the name Collin Martin from a story that flashed by a while back…or you may have no idea at all who Collin Martin is or why he is important in any discussion of accountable leadership. That is about to change. A midfielder for the San Diego Loyal in the USL Championship soccer league, Martin did something remarkable in June of 2018: He came out publicly as gay. This made him

October 30, 2020